The present invention relates to a planning support for preparing a plan in various kinds of business planning by utilizing a computer and more particularly, to a planning support method and system suitable for handling sophisticated problems in which various substitutive plans can be conceived.
In recent years, various methods have been proposed for dealing with planning problems by using a computer. The planning problem is a problem of combination in which various substitutive plans are conceivable and therefore materials are needed for deciding the quality (allowance or rejection) of planning results.
As discussed in Information Processing Society of Japan, No. 35 Nation-wide Conference Lecture Preliminary Papers, pp. 1647-1648, when a conventional planning support method (thereinafter referred to as a first prior art) is applied to preparation of a schedule of production line in planning business section of a factory, the results of the prepared schedule, ultimately evaluated in terms of average lead time or utilization efficiency of machine, are delivered for display to an operator concurrently with a diagram.
On the other hand, a conventional expert system constructing tool (hereinafter referred to as a second prior art) has the function of explaining to the user the process of deduction, thereby permitting the user to know grounds and reasons for conclusion provided by the system. The explaining function realized in the conventional expert system constructing tool is to indicate a chain of applied rules.
The conventional planning method by or based on computer support fails to extract and deliver desired information from a series of completed plans and to provide explaining information for evaluating the quality (allowance or rejection) of plans. Accordingly, the conventional method faces difficulties in deciding whether the completed plan is appropriate and in obtaining decision materials necessary for proper modification of the plan.
Since the planning problem is not a problem of preparing plan results through a mere syllogism, the second prior art which merely indicates a chain of rules has difficulties in grasping the quality of the planning results and the behavior of the system in course of planning.
The first prior art merely displays ultimate evaluation values of the planning results and fails to take into consideration showing grounds for conclusion that present allotments are selected from various conceivable substitutive plans, facing difficulties in accurately deciding the quality (allowance or rejection) of the planning results.